Law Firm Marketing: What’s Luck Got To Do With It?

If you’ve been an attorney for awhile, you know luck has very little to do with your law firm’s financial and professional success. Crossing your fingers and hoping fervently won’t work, but the strategic expenditure of time, energy and resources will.

What details make your marketing plan “strategic” depends on factors like your practice area, law firm location and targeted client demographic. That being said, a firm that incorporates the four elements below into its marketing won’t need fortune to smile on it – it will do just fine on its own:

A mobile-optimized Internet presence: Queries for many practice areas and legal questions now come from smartphones or tablets, not desktops. This has implications for if, how and when clients can find your law firm website, and what they can or cannot do with it once they get to it. Does your website automatically adjust to a mobile device’s smaller screen? Do you have a click-to-call feature, or at least your phone number in a prominent place?

A strong intake process: It may come as a surprise how ineffective most small and solo law firms are at converting ready and willing contacts into paying clients. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t, because perhaps your own firm commits some of the same oversights, like neglecting phone calls (of which 30% of firms are guilty) and asking clients to repeat sensitive or delicate information they’ve already shared with someone else in the office. A majority of firms don’t give much thought to their intake process and that’s too bad, because a few small tweaks here and there could easily result in more paying clients.

A strong foundation of client reviews: Before making a restaurant reservation, buying a movie ticket or taking a vacation, consumers want to see what people like them have to say. They’re going to do the same when it comes to committing to the expense of hiring an attorney. Sixty-seven percent of consumers say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions. If you can accumulate a good bedrock of reviews from clients (ask for reviews, if necessary), that will offer clients the reassurance and legitimacy they’re seeking.

Obviously, there’s more than one way to achieve success marketing your law firm. But if your current plan doesn’t employ a thoughtful, start-to-finish approach like the one I’ve listed here, it’s probably time to talk to FindLaw.

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Will Ashenmacher

Legal Marketing Expert

As a Senior Marketer, Will Ashenmacher uses FindLaw’s deep well of research, surveys and studies to generate informative, engaging content for a portfolio of digital platforms. A journalist and lawyer, he specializes in distilling complicated or intricate concepts into easy-to-understand copy.